Monthly Archives: July 2015

Ever had one moment where your life changes forever? Where something just clicks, or changes, and BOOM, that’s it: life will never be the same again. Where you realise that you are capable of ANYTHING. That all the possibilities in the world are open, there for the taking.

I was reminded of mine tonight reading a post by the lovely Liz Goodchild (a fab life coach who I met in London once) who was writing about running and it’s effects.

My moment was in February 2011 in South Africa. Stood watching people throw themselves off Bloukrans Bridge, the highest commercial bridge bungy in the world (or at least it was then, not sure it still is, Macau might have that title now). I’d said before the trip I wanted to do it, we drove up went to the viewing platform. And well, fuck me, it’s HIGH. Fucking high. Thoughts through my head? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Shit. Fuck fuck fuck. I stood there for ages deciding what to do.

My brother took one look and decided it wasn’t for him (we’d both said beforehand that we’d do it). I on the other hand had already said I wanted to do it. I’d told people I wanted to do it. I reeeeeeaaaaalllllly wanted to do it. But, jesus shitting christ it was high.

(In the picture above, there is someone dangling on a bungy rope but it’s hard to spot them as it’s SO HIGH and MASSIVE)

It’s actually 216 meters (709 feet) above the Bloukrans River.

High.

Anyway, long story short, I manned the fuck up, paid my cash and got harnessed up. No refunds if you wimp out. I wasn’t about to lose the cash and I also remembered telling Matt and Allister at work that I was going to do it. I just couldn’t change my mind. I needed to do it. All the while silently crapping myself.

The walk along to the middle of the bridge was terrifying. It’s underneath the bridge along a metal SEE-THROUGH walkway. What the actual? How to give someone a heart attack before you start. Amazingly, my absolutely-terrified-of-heights-ex-husband came with me onto the bridge, and I know he was crapping it worse than me. So that helped. He wasn’t about to chuck himself off though.

I can still remember as clear as day stood on the bridge. Realising there was no way out (well, of course I could have not done it, but that wasn’t an option) and I had to do it, there was no choice. Fog had started to come through the gorge and so I was looking at jumping into white mist. Better or worse? I couldn’t see the bottom or what I was jumping into. Okay, so I couldn’t see the bottom but then it becomes unknown. A white abyss. It felt just as bad to me.

Strapped up, ready to go. Anyone who’s done a bungy jump will know that feeling of stood on the edge, nothing to hold onto, and that brief feeling of panic because THERE IS NOTHING TO HOLD ONTO. Panic panic panic and then, JUMP. And then the feeling of falling. That completely unnatural feeling of falling.

And then the pull and squeeze around your ankles. Then the upwards freefalling. And then bounce. And then eventually, STOP. And dangle. For what seems forever.

And that was the moment. My moment. Hanging upside down from a bridge in a South African gorge, legs shaking from adrenaline (so much that I did worry they’d shake out of the ropes), that I realised. Out loud. “I did it. I did it. I fucking did it. Hahahahahaha.” (cue manic near-hysterical out loud laughing) And then I realised, if I could do that, I could do ANYTHING. And I did. That year was THE year my life changed. The year I left my marriage and everything I’d known for over 10 years and started living my life how I wanted. Doing all the shit I realised I could do. And every year I’ve done more. Because I know I can do whatever I want, no matter how scared I feel. No matter how many times I stand and say fuck, fuck, fuck in my head, there’s a little voice that also says “you can do it, you can fucking do it.”

Then say it. Been a while since I’ve blogged. Been busy and not had much that I’ve wanted to write about, and BOOM, all of a sudden it’s July. I’ve got loads of half finished blog posts, but somehow I can’t finish them. I write whatever comes out of my head you see, so I have to be in the right mood for writing. Then it just flows. So what I want to say tonight is about saying what you feel and being honest.

Last week I finally had a conversation with someone that we probably should have had quite a while ago. It was good, as I/we finally got Closure. But it made me realise that we should have talked about certain stuff earlier. But, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to ask questions because I didn’t want to know the answers. I assumed some stuff, even though everyone else was telling me different. But I should have stopped assuming and asked the person in question.

Thing is, you never really know what’s going on in people’s heads. What they think or how they feel. OK, so I guess you can kind of tell by how they act, but I know that this isn’t always the case, for a variety of reasons. So asking a person, or talking to them about stuff is a better way to find out, the only way to know for sure. Unless they lie, or tell you something different but there’s not a lot you can do about that. And sometimes, if you don’t know, you project what you think they might be thinking or feeling onto them, and end up making things up in your own head.

Not sure of the exact point of this post. Maybe it’s that if I had had the earlier conversations then something might have been different now. Can’t think like that though. I don’t do What If’s. Generally think things are meant to be, and I know in this particular situation the way it’s turned out is right. But what I’ve learnt from this is that I’ll [try] to not assume things. And I WILL say things if I feel them or ask those questions. Because the other sad lesson I keep learning is that life is short. It can be very short. So, why hold off until tomorrow what you can do today? Because one day it might be too late. Why miss opportunities because you think there is all the time in the world? Especially if happiness is involved.

So even more so time now for me to think “fuck it, throw caution to the wind” and make opportunities, live life how I want and say how I feel. If I don’t like the answers, well that’s just tough. I’ll have to deal with them and move on. After all life is: